Just more bizarre stuff from a Chicago Catholic university, this time from Loyola University, a Jesuit School. From the October 6 Chicago Sun-Times. Hat tip to Cal Skinner.

"I say the more human the better," says Loyola's president, the Rev. Michael J. Garanzini. "There's nothing more Catholic than the concept of the sinner/ saint. Most of these works were sponsored by the church, and it would be foolish to believe that the church knew nothing about Caravaggio's crimes or relationships. I believe Caravaggio embodies the faith, warts and all. I see no reason to shy away from that."(Photo by Jean Lachat / Sun-Times)ART PREVIEW

Of all the artists that you might have expected to be featured in the inaugural show of the new Loyola University Museum of Art, the Italian Renaissance painter Caravaggio is among the most unlikely.

Loyola is, after all, a Catholic university, and Caravaggio was, after all, something of a rogue. Described by contemporaries as both hotheaded and dangerous, he was a convicted criminal who managed to amass 14 convictions in a six-year period alone. He was charged with everything from public nuisance to violent assault; in 1606, he murdered his friend Ranuccio Tomassoni, reportedly because he felt Tomassoni had cheated on a bet over a tennis game. He died in 1610 at age 39, having spent much of the four years following the murder in exile or on the run.

He is also rumored to have been homosexual. Caravaggio's male companion of five years, Mario Minniti, is the model in several of his works. Minniti eventually married and later assisted in securing commissions for his friend, but many art historians view their relationship as more than platonic.

By no means am I saying that Loyola shouldn't exhibit Cavaggio's paintings. But the comments by Father Garanzini are pretty strange considering he is the president of a Catholic university. "There's nothing more Catholic than the concept of the sinner/ saint." Other than the paintings, I just don't see where the "saint" part figures into the equation.

* U.S. Imperialism Today: Is the Bush Doctrine Finished? * What do Socialists Mean By Revolution? * Hidden from History: The Fighting Tradition of U.S. Workers * Army of None: Organizing Against Military Recruitment * Soldiers Rebellions: From Vietnam to Iraq * Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx * No Human Being is Illegal: The Fight for Immigrant Rights * The Revolutionary Legacy of Che Guevera * The Fire Last Time: Student Movements of the 1960s * Is Socialism Against Human Nature? * Israel: The Hijack State * Abortion Rights: No Apologies, No Restrictions * System Failure: Why Capitalism Doesn’t Work * Chavez, Venezuela and the Fight for Socialism * Introduction to the ISO * Race and Class Exposed: How Can We Stop Oppression? * Socialism from Below or Socialism from Above: Marxism vs. Stalinism * Leninism: Myth and Fact * Buy It, Read It, Sell It: How We Use Socialist Worker * Iraq for Iraqis: Why We Defend the Right to Resist * Leon Trotsky on "The United Front"

Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani said here on Monday that the uproar raised by the West about President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s recent anti-Zionist remarks will only encourage Iran to gain access to nuclear technology.

Palestine chronicle--What do you consider the most effective example of the "new anti-Semitism" on American public opinion?

Finkelstein: There are a large number of claims circulating about rampant anti-Semitism on college campuses. When you go actually go through the records, talk to the schools, speak to the deans and so forth, all of these claims turn out to be fraudulent. There's just no record of this so-called rampant anti-Semitism on college campuses.

The most striking example is Columbia University where there was huge hysteria, newspaper editorials, and local politicians all calling for professors at Columbia's Middle East Center to be fired. The president eventually was forced to create an ad hoc committee to look into the charges and after all this hysteria and demands that these professors be fired, all that they could find was in one case in one instance in one day in one classroom after the invasion of Jenin in April 2002. A professor responded heatedly to a student who was defending Israeli tactics. That was it. On the other hand, they did find that pro-Israel outsiders were disrupting the classrooms of these professors, secretly video-taping their lectures and being turned, as the Columbia Report put it, into informers for the pro-Israel lobby. The real story was the harassment of professors who were critical of Israeli policy.

Or course, Klocek is not Jewish and claims of anti-Semitism figuring into the Klocek incident would be a stretch. What is going on at Columbia and DePaul, for certain, is pushing a Pro-Arab, Pro-Muslim viewpoint at the expense of a Jewish or Israeli one.

To state otherwise would be disingenuous, but not I'm certain, disingenuous to the hard-Left and Muslim apologists such as CAIR.

Finkelstein is just dead wrong about Columbia, click here for information on the documentary "Columbia Unbecoming."

DePaul has a large Muslim student population, as noted here by the American Thinker. Also, on my October 20 visit to DePaul, this by no means is a scientific observation, but heck, I saw a lot of Muslim students--wearing hijabs or kufis--at the Lincoln Park campus of the Catholic university.

This video is from an October 16 Republican Jewish Coalition event that took place in Lincolnwood, IL. Although I was invited, I was unable to attend. Luckily, Grant Crowell of Walking Eagle Productions was there, and video taped Professor Klocek's speech.

The best part? Klocek remarking that one of the Muslim students, a member of the DePaul chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, commenting to him that "Israel was treating the Palestinian people--quote unquote--the same way the Nazis treated the Jews."

Klocek's riposte to the SJP member was that there was a "qualitative difference between the Israel Army targeting known terrorists who have killed their own people...and suicide bombers targeting beaches, cafes, and even Seder dinners, killing indiscriminately Israelis, both Jew and Arab alike." (Applause)

The since suspended professor gives an excellent summary of what has become known as the "Klocek Incident."

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Al Lopez, a Hall of Fame catcher and manager who led the Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox to American League pennants in the 1950s, died Sunday at 97.

Lopez had been hospitalized in Tampa since Friday, when he suffered a heart attack at his son's home, Al Lopez Jr. said.

Lopez was the oldest living Hall of Fame member, said Jeff Idelson, spokesman for the Hall. He caught Bob Feller, Dizzy Dean and Dazzy Vance, but never forgot working as a teenager with Walter Johnson, who won 417 games and possessed a legendary fastball.

Lopez hit .261 with 51 homers and 652 RBIs during a 19-year career in which he was one of baseball's most durable catchers and set the record for most games caught in the major leagues at 1,918. The record was later broken by Bob Boone, then Carlton Fisk.

Lopez was best known for being the only AL manager to lead teams that finished ahead of the New York Yankees between 1949-64. He helped the Indians to the 1954 pennant and, until last week, was the last manager to lead the White Sox to the World Series -- their 1959 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The main action will be here, and I'll still be doing local stuff on Marathon Pundit, but I'm going to transition a lot of the Illinois stuff onto Illinois Marathon Pundit: The first post I have is about good friend of the blog, Joe Birkett, who may be running for the Republican nomination for governor of Illinois.

Judy Yu, SCC's director of communications, explained the college received only two publicity photographs of Churchill from the public-relations agency handling the professor.

"One had a cigarette in his mouth, and the other had a gun," she said. "Obviously, we cannot support guns, so it was taken out," noting the college also did not wish to endorse smoking by using the other picture. "I would have looked harder for another photograph."

"It's not a news story bound by journalistic integrity," Yu continued, noting the doctored photo was simply part of a promotion to get people to attend the speech.

A tipster informs me that copywright violations on the altered photo may have occurred. I can't see Ward Churchill suing, as it could mean he'd get stiffed on his hefty speaking appearance coming from Shoreline Community College. That money, as I noted before, is coming partially from student tuition money.

I caught the end of Alan Dershowitz being interviewed on Tony Snow's Fox News weekend radio program this afternoon on Chicago's WLS.

He said his next book will be called "Preemption: Cutting the Knife Both Ways." I may have gotten the last part wrong.

Professor Dershowitz talked of the importance of, in the right situation, of a preemptive war. Obviously, he commented, Britain and France attacking Germany in the late 1930s would have been the right thing to do.

Dersh is concerned that (and he's not alone in this opinion) that the war in Iraq may have been a bad move in at least this respect: It makes the case for a future preemptive war, Iran comes to mind, the professor said, less palatable.

This next statement jumped out at me:

"The one constant in this discussion is this: Iran must not possess nuclear weapons."

Not sure if I got the quote word for word, but he said essentially what you see above.

By the way, I find myself agreeing more and more with Alan Dershowitz. I don't think I'm becoming more liberal, and I don't think he's becoming more conservative.

It's all part of, I believe, the sea-change in the political landscape in the post 9/11 world.

Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church, whom a Tennessee newspaper called "a vile cult of losers," is coming to torment the friends and family of Army Specialist Timothy D. Watkins in Yucca Valley CA on November 1. Watkins was killed in Iraq by an IED two weeks ago.

Blogger "Some Soldier's Mom" is the mother of one of the soldiers who served with Specialist Watkins.

Saturday, October 29, 2005

CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, has not denounced the--I'm not sure if this word is strong enough--inflammatory comments made earlier this week by the Iranian president, who called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

Friday, October 28, 2005

Ward Churchill will be speaking at Seattle's Shoreline Community College on November 8, as you'll see here.

Shoreline, publicizing Churchill's appearance there next month, posted a photo of the world's most prominent fake Indian. But they changed a well-known picture of Churchill before placing it on their web site. The well-known pic is on the left. Shoreline Community College digitally-altered that photo, removing the automatic rifle from Ward's right shoulder, if the other one.

A tipster sent me this information, which, indepedent of this blog, Little Green Footballs picked up on.

The same tipster now informs me that the "PhotoShopped" picture is gone from Shoreline's site. Now there is no picture, as you'll see if you click on the above link.

Oh, about my opposition to Ward Churchill: Yes, the man has free speech rights, and everything he as said in the past is, in my opionion, covered by the First Amendment. What I object to is that colleges such as DePaul and Evergreen State College to speak at a high fee, with dollars most likely partially covered by student's tuition money.

Here's a tip for you, colleges and universities of the world: You can get me for maybe 1/10 of that. And media will be allowed to view my talk, unlike Ward Churchill's DePaul speech.

And, yes, a detail from Ward's DePaul speech was reported in error. But there are plenty of other reprehensible statements that most decent people would find objectionable in his DePaul speech of last week.

See the below post and the updates. Andrew Marcus' cleaned up version confirms Ward version of the events. It's still a vile speech, and worth listening to when you get the time. This version, minus the drawn out intro, is just under one hour and twenty minutes long.

Ward Churchill is denying to the Denver Post having made remarks at an address at DePaul University, which we reported on yesterday.

Churchill, speaking Thursday night at a Denver forum on academic freedom, said he was misquoted in two articles in The American Thinker, which said Churchill told De- Paul University students that “Hitler exterminated the wrong people.”

“It’s not something I said,” Churchill told about 80 students. They’re “not the brightest bulbs in the world and not the most honest.” [snip]

In the DePaul speech, Chicago attorney Chaya Gil writes about hearing Churchill tell students that Hitler should have exterminated “your American grandparents instead of the Jews.” Jonathan Cohen, a math professor at DePaul, makes a similar reference in another article for The American Thinker. Neither could be reached for comment Thursday.

Churchill said that he was telling the students about the hateful e-mail he received since the controversy broke about his 9/11 statements.

Churchill said he quoted one e-mail that said American Indians should have been exterminated instead of Jews and another that said Churchill’s grandparents should have been sterilized. He said American Thinker writers misquoted him.

UPDATE 10:55 AM:

From the comments: Listening to the audio, it does sound as though he was misquoted. He seems to be reading a piece of email he allegedly received. If he did indeed receive that email, it is unfortunate. I am not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt here though. If he wants to play the victim he’ll have to prove it.

UPDATE 11:15AM: After listening to this tape about a dozen times, Churchill, when he did say "Hitler killed the wrong people" he was quoting from an e-mail. The e-mailer, according to Ward, then said "sterilaztion should've begun with your grandmother."

UPDATE: 11:25 AM: Listen here with Quicktime. It confirms my 11:15 AM update. The words were said, but the context was totally wrong.

Right now as I type this post, the White Sox are on the Oprah Show. No bombshells released(although Oprah called Scott Podsednik "that cute Scott"), other than Sox manager Ozzie Guillen says he will be back next year wearing number 13 for the South Siders.

The world champs will be followed on Oprah by George Clooney.

None of the White Sox were crying, even though it was the Oprah Show. We'll have to wait on George Clooney.

UPDATE: 9:18am. It might've been taped yesterday. George Clooney has yet to cry.

Carl Cameron was just on Fox News with the latest on the Plame story. Scooter Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief-of-staff, will be indicted for his allegedly misleading testimony in front of a grand jury. According to this report, Karl Rove will not be indicted?

Will this end the Left's love affair with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald?

He (Ward) spoke about 9/11. He watched it on that day on three channels, and heard them all calling it repeatedly a “senseless” killing. But he knew right away that it was not senseless, there were reasons. Perhaps he wouldn’t agree with the reasons, but it certainly had reasons, it wasn’t “senseless.” The next day, bin Laden listed the reasons: (1) USA killed 500,000 Iraqi children. (2) The Israelis shooting stone-throwing children in Palestine. (3) The presence of Americans in Saudi Arabia. He personally thinks that the third reason is not equal to the first two, although he also doesn’t see any reason why the US should be in Saudi Arabia, still it’s not as good a reason as the first two. So 9/11 wasn’t “senseless.”

The second word we heard repeatedly after 9/11, was “innocent Americans”... Innocent Americans?! The US created the problem, and then blames others for the problem, and pretends to fix it by making the problem even worse. All for economic greed. So those who were killed in the Trade Center were the operators of the US economic power machine. And this is why he called them “3,000 Eichmans.” Not because he tried to compare them to Nazis, but because like Eichman, they haven’t actually killed, but they have operated a killing system. Eichman too never killed a single Jew, he just operated a train schedule to the death camps…. There hasn’t been any problem in the Middle East until Americans interfered and forced the creation of Arab states. All for greed.

More on Ward Churchill later... Oh, it's just going to get worse for DePaul.

This article is so powerful, it's a crime to excerpt it, but here I go anyway:

The talk turned to his favorite bottom line for evil, Adolph Eichmann. He pointed out that even in Israel they were never able to convict him of personally killing anyone. The Israelis tried but they dropped that charge. Eichmann was someone who did the scheduling for the Holocaust. He was a desk murderer. For Churchill the people who were bond traders in the Twin Towers were not innocent because they participated in the corporate system that is responsible for the vast majority of slaughter in the world. Presumably they were desk killers too. Churchill stated that Hitler exterminated the wrong people. He should have exterminated the audience’s grandparents, not the Jews.

More..

DePaul officials are upset by the fact that they are being attacked by the blogsphere. But they should ask themselves how they got into this mess. Maybe the students have the right to some answers.

1. Why was Churchill invited?

2. Why was the Human Rights Workshop open only to Cultural Center-funded student groups?

3. Why shouldn’t the College Republicans be resentful of the fact that they have been effectively excluded from being funded by the Cultural Center?

4. Why was no media allowed to attend Churchill’s talk?

5. Why were no recording devices allowed in the room?

6. Who is funding this event?

7. How much was the speaker paid?

8. Why should the students at DePaul who are white have their tuition dollars used to pay to have a demagogue like Ward Churchill incite hostility towards them simply because they are white.

9. Why are students being given extra credit for attending?

This is not an isolated occurrence. So far this year the students have had a speech by Norman Finkelstein who stated unequivocally that the 1948 Arab/Israeli war was an ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians by the newly created Jewish state. The fact that the destruction of Israel and the eviction of the Jews was the publicly proclaimed goal of the surrounding Arab states that attacked it was never mentioned. Then Kathy Kelly, the human shield for Saddam and Yasser Arafat, gave a talk on Iraq. In the winter and spring there is to be a program entitled “Confronting Empire”, a series of lectures, conferences and other activities, aimed at “educating” the students. Does anyone seriously believe that with a name like “Confronting Empire” that the program will be objective?

Maybe the DePaul administration needs to take a look at itself and the college’s recent behavior, such as its handling of the Klocek affair instead of blaming the College Republicans or conservative blog sites for their sinking reputation.

And yes, at least some students received extra credit (you mean they do that in college, now?) for attending Der Churchill's spewing.

While the general public had been excluded, as a faculty member I was permitted to attend. I sat down between a student, who was receiving extra credit for attending and doing a write-up, and a faculty member from the School of Education, who was giving extra credit to students from his class who attended and did some kind of unspecified follow-up.

Absolutey disgusting.

UPDATE 11:15AM: After listening to this tape about a dozen times, Churchill, when he did say "Hitler killed the wrong people" he was quoting from an e-mail. The e-mailer, according to Ward, then said "sterilaztion should've begun with your grandmother."

Which brings us to Finkelstein's second line of writing. Along with his Holocaust/ Shakedown pieces, Finkelstein writes books whose primary object is to analogize Israelis to Nazis. A sample Finkelstein witticism: "I can't understand why Israel's apologists would be offended by a comparison with the Gestapo. I would think that, for them, it is like Lee Iacocca being told that Chrysler is using Toyota tactics."

Finkelstein appearing on college campuses is nothing new peddling his latest book is nothing new. What makes this visit interesting is that he'll be speaking at Harvard University, where noted attorney Alan Dershowitz is a law professor.

Grant Crowell of Walking Eagle Productions interviewed FIRE's David French earlier this month.

FIRE defends the free speech rights of students and professors at colleges and universities. It is, in French's words, "non-partisan and non-ideological" organization.

French focuses on academia, because they are "uniquely oppressive institutions in our society."

"Basic religious liberty is under siege on campuses across the country," French added later in the interview.

French also comments that the "vast majority of instances of censorship that we see on campus come from the left."

And of course, the Thomas Klocek free speech speech struggle with DePaul, which French called a "classic violation of academic freedom."

French is tough, deservedly so, on DePaul, stating that "what is absolutely clear is that Professor Klocek was suspended without due process because he offended people whose points of view the university wanted to protect."

Here's a great story: A guy who's bounced around from team to team the last six years, Geoff Blum, hits a two-out home run in the top of the 14th inning to put the White Sox in front of the Astros--placing the South Siders in almost complete control of the World Series. The Sox are up 3 games to none over Houston and are poised to grab their first World Series crown since 1917.

Time-wise it was the longest game in World Series history--innings wise, it matched a 1916 World Series game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox. Babe Ruth pitched all fourteen for Boston.Technorati tags: World Seriesmlbwhite soxbabe ruthbaseball

Ward Churchill (Keetoowah Band Cherokee) is one of the most outspoken of Native American activists and scholars in North America and a leading analyst of indigenous issues. He is a Professor of Ethnic Studies and Coordinator of American Indian Studies at the University of Colorado. Churchill serves as Associate Director of the Center for Studies of Ethnicity and Race in America at the institution. He is also co-director of the Colorado chapter of the American Indian Movement and vice chair of the American Indian Anti-Defamation Council.

From an anonymous tipster....

His appearance fee will be paid for by student activity fees.

A protest can be arranged in front of the gym, according to the Director of Student Programs there, says my tipster. Information on contacting him is here. Please by nice, as the individual there I spoke with was quite friendly to me when I called to confirm this information. He didn't hide from me, as did Dr. Harvette Grey of DePaul's Cultural Center.

Our beleaguered "governor" sure doesn't know when to quit....what else is new?A downleft tipster witnessed Blago's arrival to Comiskey (That's US Cellular Field for all you Sox Bandwagon Jumpers) for Game1 on Saturday night.Upon jumping out of his black suburban surrounded by his entourage Blago decided to do some gladhanding. Things were going pretty well until some real people recognized him.He was quickly surrounded by a crowd which began booing him...This escalated to the crowd actually pelting him with various objects. While being ushered away by his state police detail a fumbling Blago yelled "At least I didn't raise your Taxes!"..which was met by more boos and jeers from the growing crowd.

Monday, October 24, 2005

The video link comes my way courtesy of Grant Crowell of Walking Eagle Productions. It shows Ward Churchill completely lose control of his temper as he is challenged on his alleged Native American ancestry at a February press conference in Hawaii.

This week the University of Virginia is having it's first Palestine Week. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) will host DePaul Professor Norman Finkelstein for a talk Tuesday night, according to the Daily Cavalier.

Norman Finkelstein has been called a holocaust denier by the Anti-Defamation League.

The SJP is a group with proven ties to terrorism and the Islamic jihad against Israel, America, and the rest of the non-Muslim world. The group's national conference at the University of Michigan in November 2002 was sponsored by the Islamic Association for Palestine, a group that raises money for the families of suicide bombers. The conference also featured keynote speaker Sami al-Arian, a former professor at the University of South Florida who has been indicted as a leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group.

The DePaul Chapter of SJP was one of the two groups who went running to the administration of DePaul University complaining about the views of Professor Thomas Klocek, because his ideas on the Middle East didn't agree with their own.

A little know fact about Sami al-Arian: The former University of South Florida professor--and suspected terrorist--has graced the campus of DePaul University, speaking there in 2002.

Well, that's not fair to the phony Indian, because this guy is worse. Ward Churchill dances around the issue, but a one-time instructor at North Carolina State University, Kamau Kambon, goes the Full Monty in genocidal moonbattery: He wants to kill all White people.

From Michelle Malkin's blog. Ironically, she made this post the same day that Ward Churchill spoke at DePaul.

Prior to his call for genocide against white people, Kambon, who owns Blacknific[e]nt Books in Raleigh, told the panel that “we are at war.” He said that white people had set up an "international plantation" for blacks, which made “every white person on earth a plantation master.” He said that, “You’re either supporting white people in their process of death, or you're for African liberation.”

He stressed one point in particular. “White people want to kill us. I want you to understand that. They want to kill you,” he said. “They want to kill you because that is part of their plan.” Kambon closed his remarks by urging participants and C-SPAN viewers to "get very serious and not be diverted from coming up with a solution to the problem, and the problem on the planet is white people."

Before teaching at NCSU, Kambon was a professor of education at St. Augustine's College in Raleigh, a historically black institution. He was given a Citizen's Award in 1999 by the Triangle’s left-wing newspaper, The Independent Weekly. Ironically, Kambon is also an opponent of the death penalty.

Excerpts of Kambon's address may be heard online at the John Locke Foundation's blog site The Locker Room. The full remarks may be found at C-SPAN online (www.cspan.com) by searching the recent programs for "Black Media Forum on Image of Black Americans in Mainstream Media."

His bookstore website, Blacknifecent Books.com, is down--likely due to too many hits on the site, or Kambon's gotten too many e-mails, which crashed his server.

Dr. Kamau Kambon's remarks have received widespread coverage on various websites, blogs and in the media. In some cases, it has been incorrectly reported that Kambon is an employee of NC State. Kambon sporadically taught at North Carolina State University on an as-needed basis. He has not been employed by the university since June 30, 2005. When I learned of his comments, I released the following statement:

The remarks recently attributed to one of our former employees do not in any way represent the values and standards of the university. This type of speech is counter to any reasoned discussion on the issue of race relations, and is absolutely unacceptable in the NC State community.

Canadian blogger Dust My Broom is getting the word out about Ward's Churchill's next college speaking appearance. He links to several Chicago blogs--including this one--that reported on the Ward Churchill carnage in the Windy City.

In an earlier post, DMB gave a "heads up" on Ward Churchill's November 4th appearance in chilly Manitoba.

In other Ward news, MacBigot.com, while proclaiming WC the "Liberal Boob of the Week," posted information on two other upcoming Ward speaking engagements, courtesy of Speak Out Now.

Nov. 7, 2005 The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA

Nov. 8, 2005 Shoreline Community College, Seattle, WA

These two are public institutions, so it should be much easier, unlike at DePaul, to find out who is funding Ward's speaking appearance, and how much the fake Indian is being paid.

Anyone know some conservative Washington State bloggers? Spread the word.

Andrew Marcus is yet another blogger I had the pleasure of meeting Thursday at the Ward Churchill protest at DePaul University.

Here in the Chicago area, there are rumblings of a blogger get-together....more on that if it happens.

In my first post this morning, I wrote about the woman I called "Lefty Gal." Well, you can see her in action, using the "F" word--get the kids out of the room--as she confronts a nice gentleman (he was nice to me) wearing a Rush Limbaugh.com "Club G'itmo" shirt.

The photo on the left was taken outside of the DePaul Student Activities Center, where Ward Churchill spoke Thursday.

The second photo was taken two Sundays ago during my Chicago Marathon photoblog.

The banner in the background has the same message as the one on the left.

I'm not sure what the Chicago Marathon, DePaul, or Ward Churchill have to do with the Bush Administration, but the counterprotesters I attempted to engage in conversation weren't the most rational people on the planet.

They should've just stuck with their chant, "The World Can't Wait, Drive Out the Bush Regime!"

See the woman in the long brown hair on the left (of course) side of the banner in the first pic? She's a member of World Can't Wait, a hard Left organization. Among her delusions is her belief that David Horowitz and Bill O'Reilly are forces in America working to drive out free speech. Leftists of course have a deep and understandable contempt for Horowitz: He switched sides and joined the Right.

On November 2 last year, we had an election where the "Bush Regime" could've been driven out. As you can see in the banner, November 2 is the date for their rally, the first anniversary of Bush's re-election.

Oh, something else happened on November 2, 2004. Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was murdered as a result of expressing his free speech rights in the form of a movie called "Submission."

I know it's conjecture, but somehow, especially since Van Gogh was a Bush supporter, Lefty Gal would find a way to claim what Van Gogh did shouldn't be protected by free speech laws. Just conjecture, but one I'd bet money on.

Thirty minutes before Jose Contreras throws the first pitch Saturday in Game 1 of the World Series, his older brother Humberto plans to ride a horse to a friend's wooden shack, where he will listen to the game clandestinely on a short-wave radio.There, with the radio resting on a bed, a cigar in his mouth and a bottle of rum nearby, Humberto Contreras will hear the call of each pitch and picture his brother on the mound challenging Houston Astros hitters at U.S. Cellular Field."I'm always nervous, but I'm sure he's going to do well," said Contreras, 41, speaking from this impoverished farming community on Cuba's western tip. "It's tough that his family, his brother, can't watch the game."Although the eyes of Chicago will be on Contreras as he starts Game 1, many Cuban baseball fans will be forced to go to extreme lengths to keep up with the White Sox as they pursue their first World Series title since 1917.Though citizens of small countries take pride whenever one of their own makes it big on the world stage, Contreras and fellow White Sox pitcher Orlando "El Duque"

I just added Cao's blog to the blogroll. She has her photos here and here.

As with most of the anti-Ward protestors, Cao had a verbal altercation with a moonbat, in Cao's case, it was with a young African-American woman.

The rundown on that incident is here. The moonbat (I'm an eyewitness) called Cao, a racist, a KKK member, and a descendant of monkeys swinging in trees. She also claimed "millions" of black people died in New Orleans because of Hurricane Katrina, due to, of course, President Bush's racism.

That "monkeys" comment is a common Louis Farrakhan insult directed at Jews in particular, and whites in general.

The craziness at Chicago's DePaul University goes well beyond the ill-advised Ward Churchill invite and the disgraceful suspension of Professor Thomas Klocek.

Dr. Steven Plaut at Moonbat Central has another post on DePaul "University," as he calls it.

Interim Liberal Arts & Sciences Dean at DePaul, Chuck Suchar , has some sucky ideas about America. You see, America is an Empire. Capital "E." And the Empire needs to be confronted.

Chuck is a sociology professor, and as much as I'd hate to paint an entire discipline with a broad brush, sociology departments at perhaps every college--with the possible exceptions of Kenyon, Hillsdale, and Rockford, are dominated by the Loony Left.

The College hopes through the Theme Series to achieve the following objectives:to engage in a College wide (and broader) conversation about the current state of and developing trends in the global order, not only for the purpose of advancing a theme of great interest to faculty and students but also to significantly enhance the community of intellect and engagement in the University;

to promote a wide range of views and participants in this conversation about empire and opposition in its contemporary and historical dimensions utilizing the increasingly global interests of our faculty and students;

to question the nature of the American role and the role of other nations and interests in the emerging order and consider the forms of appropriate action, engagement and scholarship in light of that assessment.

The College is asking for the following faculty cooperation:

I know that a number of Departments and Programs are already organizing or joining in the organization of events for the Theme Series, and want to encourage your participation in your Department or Program’s planning.

In order to establish a participant base of students and courses for the events, I have asked Departments and Programs with your assistance to identify applicable Winter and Spring Quarter courses under two categories

Courses that will center on themes related to Empire, current or historical, and the instructors

courses that will have some component on this theme and the instructors

This will allow us to publicize these courses as Theme Series options for interested students, and to ensure ongoing notification of instructors and students involved in the Series.If you are teaching one of these courses, I would ask you to consider encouraging or requiring student participation in Theme Series events.

To me, it appears that Chuck Suchar is setting up a Viet Cong type "re-education" camp at DePaul. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration on my part, but clearly Suchar and the other professors involved in the Empire Theme Series are promoting anti-Americanism, plain and simple.

Friday, October 21, 2005

If you feel especially free tonight, you probably don’t want to do anything – if you’re not, you’ve probably got motive to do something now, it’s on you to figure out what – I’m not your commanding general, Yes? Aside from which I’m not gonna stand here and commit sedition. ….. I’m not a terrorist and I’m not a seditionist – I’ll leave that to Thomas Jefferson and the other founding fathers, okay? (room laughter) All of whom would be sitting in Guantanamo Bay if they were running around now doing what they did then. Ward Churchill October, 20, 2005, DePaul University

It's on the FIRE site, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

Pariahs, Martyrs — and Fighters Back, Conservative professors in America is the article. The Klocek case is featured, but Miller also discusses other PC attacks on non-liberal academics.

An excerpt:

Klocek’s case is particularly striking because the DePaul administration has left a long paper trail that demonstrates its disdain for his ideas as well as its disregard for the principles of academic freedom. A little more than a week after his encounter with the anti-Israel activists, Klocek found himself summoned to the office of Susanne Dumbleton, a dean at DePaul (who refused to speak to National Review). According to Klocek, Dumbleton said she had received letters complaining about Klocek’s behavior. She wouldn’t show them to Klocek, but the students who wrote them evidently felt “hurt” by Klocek’s attempts to “impose” his views on them. Dumbleton suspended Klocek with pay and urged him to stay off campus (where he had not only been teaching, but attending daily Mass for years). She did this without arranging the formal hearing that DePaul’s own employment guidelines would seem to require. She also told Klocek not to talk to the media — a prohibition that she did not apply to Klocek’s accusers, or even to herself. “We do not respect the unfair use of faculty power over students,” she said in an interview with the DePaulia, a student newspaper. A week later, with her gag order still silencing Klocek, Dumbleton wrote to the DePaulia: “The university must serve as a forum at which individuals are able to express contrary ideas, debate opposing positions, challenge assumptions, press areas of the unknown, and consider unimagined possibilities.” This was no defense of a besieged Klocek. Instead, Dumbleton was in the process of issuing one of several apologies to the SJP and UMMA students “for the insult and disrespect they had endured.” Technorati tags: Ward ChurchillNational ReviewDePaulStudents for Justice in PalestineSJPChicago

"I have fallen into the habit of starting my morning by reading Chris Muir's Day by Day, and this morning's strip tipped me to a new Ward Churchill story. This one involves DePaul University, and their local College Republicans.According to this account, DePaul invited (paid) Churchill to speak last night at their Cultural Center. When students began to question the selection of Churchill, Cultural Center director Harvette Grey refused to disclose the funding source for the lecture, and banned some students from the center, specifically banning the College Republicans from a post-lecture workshop on Churchill's views (lecture topic: human rights for people of color).

For all the posturing about free speech rights, the University has been presenting a fairly restricted worldview. In addition to the Churchill lecture, the school has been in the news recently for suspending Adjunct Professor Thomas Klocek for arguing with members of Students for Justice in Palestine at a school-sponsored event. In the name of giving a lectern to alternative viewpoints, though, they have hired noted Holocaust denier Norm Finkelstein into their Poli-Sci faculty.

I did not attend DePaul, but I know that if this took place at my former college, I would reply to the annual request for donations with a pledge to support the school when the school returned to supporting all points of view, not just the views of the current faculty and Dean. DePaul does have a handy "notes from alumni" message board where former students can let the administration know how they feel about the direction the school is taking."

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Pictured here are Chicago bloggers "Freedom Folks," also known as The Bald Chick and Jake Jacobsen. As we were awaiting the departing audience from Ward-a-palooza, the three of us were talking casually about--well, who knows what--but during this idle time, a short, 50ish olive-skinned woman with thick glasses approached us and pointed to Jake's sign, and said "If you were in there (Ward Churchill's speech), you would've learned something about free speech."

We didn't even know Churchill's talk had ended, and here we were already being heckled! And besides, we did want to be "in there" with Ward!

Jake responded to the woman that not only did he support free speech, he also supported Ward Churchill's free speech rights.

Jake just didn't think that DePaul should be paying Ward big bucks to speak there, in light of his "Little Eichmanns" comments and the like, as well as his shady academic reputation (plagiarism and fabrication for starters.)

There was some back and forth between them, and then I asked the woman, "What about Thomas Klocek's free speech rights?"

"Who," she said?

I gave her a brief rundown of Thomas Klocek's attempt to exercise his free speech rights while he was a DePaul professor.

She then told me, "I'm not familiar with all the details of that case."

I told her I was, and responded to her "DePaul fired Klocek when he spoke of things far less controversial than what Ward Churchill has said."

Her reply was, "You're not well informed on this story."

(Obviously she didn't recognize me as the "Marathon Pundit." Friends--and several enemies--of the blog recognized me right away.)

My response to her: "Have you ever spoken with Tom Klocek? Well I have! Several times. I've met with him, too."

It then became clear that this was a woman who was unaccustomed to being un-upped, because what she then said next completely astonished me:

"I would never allow you in my classroom."

Free speech at DePaul.

Oh, do you think I made this story up? The Freedom Folks were there. Was the woman lying about being an instructor at DePaul. Possibly. But remember Occam's Razor. The easiest explanation is usually the most credible.

Free speech at DePaul. Catch the spirit!

If anyone knows the identity of this woman, please leave that information in the blog comments.Is she Professor Kay/Kaye? (See the post below this one.)

UPDATE Oct 21 11:15PM CDT: Freedom Folks offer their take on "The Teacher."

My favorite part is here:

The moral of the story? She was a teacher! Couldn't this alleged teacher read English? (Jake with FF is referring to his sign way up on this post.) Is this who's teaching our children? I'm more concerned about her being an idiot than a crusty old lefty!

While attempting to enter Ward-a-palooza tonight at DePaul, one of the DePaul security staff announced, "Would Professor Kay's (Kaye?) students please form a line here." Who is this Professor? Was it part of a class assignment for the students to attend Ward Churchill's lecture? If anyone knows, please leave this information in the comments.

I asked some of the DePaul Republicans if they knew who this person was, but they didn't.

UPDATE Oct 21 10:50am CDT: See the comments for this post. A suspect, I repeat, a suspect and only a suspect, has been identified.

I believe this guy, "Purple Hair," is the "Beer not bombs" guy who left a paranoid rambling on my "Later today...Ward Churchill at DePaul photoblogging..." post. The hair color didn't show up perfectly in this photo. Anyway, at the end of Ward Churchill's DePaul emission, "Purple Hair" gave the phony Indian an immediate standing ovation, according to a friend-of-the-blog who got inside DePaul's Ward-a-palooza.

UPDATE 12:35 AM October 21: Blog commentator Liberty or Death informs us that Purple Hair is DePaul student Matt Muchowski "aka scribbler. I'm surprised he didn't get arrested today, he usually does."

And why is he called "Scribbler?" His chalking an Chagall modern art sculpure with anti-war slogans in 2003 probably is the reason. This story, from Chicago Indymedia, is hilarious, although it's not meant to be.

From that article:

Police arrested DePaul student Matt Muchowski at around 11AM this morning at the Chagall statue on Washington west of Dearborn, allegedy for chalking anti-war slogans on the statue. It goes on..."He was writing anti-war slogans with chalk," said one activist. "If that's an arrestable offence, then the police have truly shut down legitimate dissent in this city."People like "Purple Hair/Scribbler" can't be reasoned with in any fashion.

UPDATE 12:50PM Oct. 21. A second commenter on this blog has identified "Purple Hair" as Matt Muchowski.

That's what an attendee at the Ward Churchill DePaul speech told me the fraud Indian said tonight. There's a lot more to blog about, but I'm going to take it one step at a time.

I wasn't able to get into the meeting...I was close--ten feet from from Room 314 in DePaul's Student Activities Center.

I shouldn't feel bad. No media was allowed in. None. That's the way Ward wanted it. While I was being turned away, DePaul security also told a reporter from Loyola University's WLUW to leave. Visiting that station's web site, I'd think that this guy might've been very supportive of Ward Churchill.

The protest outside was entertaining. And I got to meet some people I've only spoken with on the phone or exchanged e-mails with from home. More on this later

There was a question and answer session, but that was a farce. One witness told me numerous questions, on 3 by 5 cards or something like that, were submitted to a moderator. That moderator chose the questions to ask the phony Native American.

So much for "free speech" at DePaul. The DePaul brass might call that a cheap-shot, but remember, Ward's been paid a large amount, estimated by some at $5,000, to speak at the school. As for the question-and-answer format: DePaul would probably respond, "That's the way Ward wanted it."

That's a feeble excuse. If DePaul's administration had any guts--and it's unlikely they do--they'd tell Churchill, "Hey Ward, you're getting paid several thousand dollars for 90 minutes of work. A lot of that money comes from student tuition dollars. Answer some damn questions directly from the audience! If you don't like it, then stay in Boulder and we'll keep that money."

Ward Churchill is scheduled to speak at De Paul University, Chicago IL on October 20, 2005. Churchill has caused a public furor over his loathsome remarks about the 9-11 tragedy in New York. AIM's Grand Governing Council has been dealing with Churchill's hateful attitude and rip-off of Indian people for years.

The American Indian Movement Grand Governing Council, representing the National and International leadership of the American Indian Movement once again is vehemently and emphatically repudiating and condemning the outrageous statements made by academic literary and Indian fraud, Ward Churchill in relationship to the 9-11 tragedy in New York City that claimed thousands of innocent people’s lives.

Churchill’s statement that these people deserved what happened to them, and calling them little Eichmanns, comparing them to Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who implemented Adolf Hitler’s plan to exterminate European Jews and others, should be condemned by all.

The sorry part of this is Ward Churchill has fraudulently represented himself as an Indian, and a member of the American Indian Movement, a situation that has lifted him into the position of a lecturer on Indian activism. He has used the American Indian Movement’s chapter in Denver to attack the leadership of the official American Indian Movement with his misinformation and propaganda campaigns. He has deceitfully and treacherously fooled innocent and naÔve Indian community members in Denver, Colorado, as well as many other people worldwide. Churchill does not represent, nor does he speak on behalf of the American Indian Movement. DePaul should be aware that in their search for truth and justice, they have hired a fraud to speak on Indian activism is in itself a betrayal of their goals.

Well, Mayor Richard Daley hasn't issued a proclamation, but the second generation DePaul alum still has a few hours make such a declaration to honor Ward Churchill's return to his native Illinois.

On the other hand, Daley's son Patrick recently enlisted in the Army, and "Da Mare," not known for his easy-going personality, could go ballistic if he finds out that Ward Churchill is staining the DePaul campus tonight.

I don't have his e-mail address as I do Ward's, but Mayor Richard M. Daley can be reached at:

Okay, this Little Eichmann will be at the Ward Churchill protest at DePaul's Lincoln Park Campus.

I have a number of duties assigned to me, which I'm not releasing online.

The protest will be taking place at the DePaul Student Center at 2250 N. Sheffield, near the Fullerton Avenue Red Line stop.

Friends: This is what I'll be wearing, a White Sox hat and an Illinois jacket, with my old friend Chief Illiniwek on the viewer's right. Say "hello!"

As for the Chief, I wonder what Ward thinks about him?

I'll be doing some photoblogging on Mobile Marathon Pundit. Most of the pictures will be early, as it'll get dark around 6pm.

Ward's DePaul spewing is open to DePaul students and faculty only. I have not given up on sneaking in. It may not be easy, but even the local media has been banned, or at least their cameras and tape recorders have, according several "friends of the blog."

Churchill is to be DePaul’s headline speaker on the subject of human rights for men of color . The CU Professor has received major attention for an essay he wrote shortly after the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, where a noted DePaul alumni was one of its victims killed. Churchill’s paid speeches argue that the attacks were a retaliation for a 1991 bombing raid on Iraq and U.S. support of economic sanctions against Iraq following the Persian Gulf War. He referred to the people killed at the World Trade Center as "little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the Twin Towers," referring to Adolf Eichmann, who carried out Adolf Hitler's systematic extermination of the Jews during World War II. (The essay was later included in his book, On the Justice of Roosting Chickens.) Churchill has since gone on a paid, nationwide speaking tour arguing that “more 9/11’s are necessary,” for the “fragging of U.S. officers by their own troops,” and to have the “U.S. off the planet, out of existence altogether.”

The crux of Churchill’s argument says that for the world to become a better place, American capitalists should be disposed of through violent means because they drive the instruments of worldwide oppression.

While the DePaul administration is actively supporting this event with student fees, they have recently punished students and faculty for exercising their own free speech rights and academic freedom by expressing viewpoints counter to Ward Churchill and his supporters, including suspending DePaul Professor Thomas Klocek (who has filed suit against the University) for entering into an argument with Muslim student groups over their anti-Semitic and anti-Israel brochures.

When a concerned student, Nick Hahn, inquired of the Administration as to why Ward Churchill was invited to speak at DePaul and how he was being funded, he was met with great hostility and denied any information. Executive director of the Cultural Center, Dr. Harvette Gray, reportedly responded by saying, “I’m the Executive Director of the Cultural Center and I don’t have to explain to you!” before storming out of the meeting. Hahn was then banned from entering the Cultural Center and barred from contacting Dr. Grey, under orders of Dean of Students Greg MacVarish.

Churchill is currently under investigation by the University of Colorado for allegations of “plagiarism, misuse of others' work, falsification and fabrication of authority,” and copyright theft. Churchill is also denounced by first amendment groups such as FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), Colorado Governor Bill Owens and the Coiorado State Legislature, The National American Indian Movement (AIM), and numerous American Indian tribal nations, including the Indian nations that Churchill falsely claimed enrollment in (most recently with the Ketoowah Band of Cherokee in Oklahoma).

“This is a crisis for DePaul students, whom are exteremely concerned about the use of school funds to grant a terrorist sympathizer a pedestal from which to speak.” Says Joe Blewitt, President of the Depaul College Republicans.

The level of discrimination against the College Republicans and other “politically correct” student groups on DePaul campus has run rampant. Flyers made by the College Republicans, depicting some of Churchill’s more outrageous quotes were denied approval by the Student Life office, on the grounds that they were “propaganda”. (Even though they were verbatim quotes from Churchill’s books and an actual, undoctored photo on one of Churchill’s book covers.)

The DePaul College Republicans were crossed off the attendee’s list for a workshop to be held the following day on the 21st which would address Churchill’s views. (The Cultural Center, after crossing the group off, added new attendance rules ex post facto.)The DePaul College Republicans and fellow supporters will be holding their protest both outside and inside the DePaul Student Center, starting at 5 pm.

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